MorningSide resident Benjamin Calhoun watches as the abandoned home next to his is torn down.

DETROIT, MI -- As demolition equipment tore the house next door to his to pieces, Benjamin Calhoun wondered what all the commotion was about.

The home being demolished was located around the corner from
J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy, where minutes before Mayor Dave Bing, Gov. Rick
Snyder, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts and others formally announced nine strategic
areas for a blight-fighting effort, all centered around schools: the Bagley,
Neinas, Harms and Bennett elementary schools and the Bates, Roberto Clemente, East English Village and Clark academies.

While Calhoun said he knew the house next to where he and
has wife have lived for 33 years was scheduled to come down eventually, he said he was unaware that
anything had been planned for today. He said he was glad the home was coming down, but added that most of the problem properties in his neighborhood were at least three blocks away from the school.

More is planned for MorningSide and beyond, civic leaders said Thursday.

The ten-block radius around Clark is the pilot for local and state programs, and the local effort focuses on demolishing 200 homes and rehabilitating dozens of
others.

Five state agencies, the city of Detroit, the Wayne County
Treasurer's office, Detroit Public Schools and a variety of non-profit organizations are all involved
in some sort of capacity.

The focal schools were chosen by Roberts, who consulted with
state and city officials on demographic data and community involvement.

At the same time on Thursday, Gov. Snyder introduced the state's Pathways
to

Gov. Snyder plants flowers with local school kids after announcing a state program aimed at eliminating blight and revitalizing Detroit's MorningSide neighborhood.

Potential program, which is being launched in MorningSide through the state Department of Human Services.

The program involves launching family resource centers that will focus on truancy, as
well as issues that may keep children from attending school, such as hunger
or transportation.

"It's more than just real estate, and we're going to work
hard on the people aspect of this," Snyder told a crowd gathered at the school, adding, "It's about taking our
services and instead of putting them in some office building where someone may
have to take one bus, two buses, go and wait in line at some government office
to talk to somebody about getting help, we're going to establish family resource
centers in a number schools in Detroit, right in the neighborhood, to give you
the services you deserve."

Several nonprofits have been working in the MorningSide neighborhood already.

In February, Habitat for Humanity launched a $25 million
intitiative with corporate sponsors to cleanup and weatherize homes there. In June, Lear Corporation president and CEO Matthew
Simoncini announced a three-year, $1.5 million program that put 200 paid high school
tutors at Clark.

Meanwhile, Bing said the city is still on track to reach its
overall goal of razing nuisance properties.

"As I announced last month, we are in the process of demolishing
1,500 dangerous and abandoned buildings across the city by the end of September,"
he said. By then, Bing said, the city's
demolition count will have reached 6,000 homes, "putting us on track to reach
10,000 by the end of my first term."

That still leaves an estimated 35,000 empty and dangerous
structures throughout Detroit, Bing noted.

Of course, that kind of work is also
not free. Bing said he has an important meeting with U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan's office early next week, when he'll see if Washington is willing to lend a financial hand to the city's neighborhood rehabilitation efforts.

"On Monday, I'm going and I'm begging and I'm doing whatever
I have to do to bring home the bacon," he said.